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Hemaloshinee Vasudevan1
Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia; email address:
hemaloshinee25@gmail.com
Nomahaza Mahadi
Senior Lecturer, Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia;
email address: mahaza@ibs.utm.my
Farrah Anne Robert
Head of Academic (DBA), YPC International College-Liverpool John Moores University,
Malaysia; email address: farrah@kolejypc.edu.my
Abstract: The primary issue in this case concerns about a manager’s engagement toward
employees in an organisation. The low level of attitude displayed by the manager creates a
negative impact on employees' performance. The organisational outcome is also affected by
the negative attitude of the managers. In this case, the key issue is about the employees'
satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the negative attitude of the manager. The positive mind-set
of employees is affected, and they develop dissatisfaction with the negative mentality of the
manager. The case also investigates the aspect of resistance to changes, whereby, negative
thinking is reduced, and positive management thinking among employees and managers in the
organisation is increased. Overall, this case describes a management dilemma on how
employees’ job satisfaction levels caused serious levels (turnover intention increased) in the
commercial banking industry. Survey instruments have been used to measure employees’
attitude or behaviour. The finding indicated that 60 percent of the negative attitude of manager
caused dissatisfaction among employee. In this case, the dissatisfaction among employees was
due to the negative behaviour of the manager who penalised staff who could contribute
towards the success of a project. In addition, dissatisfaction was also due to the lack of
recognition received, whereby, achievement rewards were given to the manager who lacked in
the contribution of knowledge and ideas for the company development.
INTRODUCTION
In August 1975, Bank X was established in Malaysia. Being the sixth biggest banking group in
Malaysia, it comprises of Bank Y and its subsidiaries Bank A, Bank B, Bank C, Bank D and
Bank E. This group of bank offers a wide range of investment banking, commercial banking,
retail financing, and related financial services, which includes Islamic banking, underwriting
of general and life insurance, stock, share and futures broking, investment advisory as well as
asset, property and unit trust management.
1
Corresponding Author
IIUM Journal of Case Studies in Management, Vol 8, No 1/2, 2017 24
A case study of organizational behaviour and resistance to changes…
dissatisfied with his job. Simon also penalized Alex by taking away his promotion, increment,
and bonus; leaving the employee to work under pressure. Other subordinates were also not
satisfied with the job because of Simon’s behaviour, and they ceased from the task. Generally,
Alex has his own perception about the job, and he wants a peaceful working environment
instead of opposing and conflicting opinions which often lead to arguments between them. How
does Alex manage Simon’s negative attitudes which create employees’ job dissatisfaction?
Additionally, how does Alex manage Simon’s negative attitudes to become positive attitudes
that can enhance employees’ job satisfaction? Figure 1 and Figure 2 relates to this case study,
and it shows how the managers’ negative attitudes and positive attitudes in the workplace can
create job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction among employees.
Negative
Feelings
Negative
Negative Thoughts Manager vs. Subordinate Behavior
Decreased
productivity and
job satisfaction
Figure 1 illustrates that managers’ negative attitudes can create employees’ job dissatisfaction
due to the arguments that arise between the manager’s and subordinate. Often, the arguments
are caused by differing opinions, behaviours, and feelings in handling the position. In this case,
Alex being a subordinate must listen to Simon because Simon is the general manager. It
believed that both their leader-member relationship and interpersonal communication is not
good. Simon’s persistent negative feelings, thoughts, and attitudes toward Alex, decreases
Alex’s productivity and job satisfaction. In other words, Simon, being free to display his
negative attitudes in any position, affects the employees working moods, hence, demotivating
them and causing job dissatisfaction. However, negative thoughts are acceptable to a certain
level as it enables a manager to observe employee every day and every time to identify their
fault; although this is not a great issue for the business organisation. In certain events, negative
thoughts can grow into negative feelings, which in turn may result in managers hurting their
subordinate by sending e-mails to HR requesting for actions against small mistakes. This
childish attitude makes employees uncomfortable with their manager. Employees further
develop a big change in behaviour (negative attitudes). This kind of changes in behaviour can
affect both sides, as it causes negative productivity and job satisfaction that spills over to
existing co-workers.
The moral of this case study is, a manager cannot control the subordinate’s thoughts and
opinions, as well as penalize an employee. This is because being a leader, a manager is
responsible for the subordinate and the work that they do. A manager should consider the
employees’ position and behaviour while making certain decisions, as to not disassemble the
spirit in the team. Managers and leaders are prone to give a negative comment when
employees provide suggestions and thoughts. As employees usually work hard to bring
positivity and improvement, harsh and unsupportive remarks may demotivate them.
Demotivated employees further express their dissatisfaction by coming to work late, taking
frequent medical leaves and disregarding the works assigned by the supervisor. An employee
has the right to take actions on such managers, but very often they do not. Throughout an
employees’ working life, encounters with ill-behaving managers are unavoidable. As there is
no alternative way to ignore this kind of working environment, employees often resort to
resignation. As leaders, managers should guide their subordinates and not ignore employees.
Managers should cultivate positive thinking, constructive opinions, and ideas to sustain the
workplace culture and improve the leader-member exchange relationship. Figure 2 exhibits the
negative attitudes of manager that causes employees’ job dissatisfaction.
Wasted Time
Stuck
Loss of creativity and
Loyalty innovation
Decreased Productivity
Negative Impacts on Employees
Decreased Job Satisfaction
Negative Perception on Manager
Loss of good
Lower morale employees
Figure 2 illustrates that how negative thinking can result in negative attitudes that erode an
individual’s working journey. Managers who have negative thinking and attitudes often wear
down their subordinate because they do not like their subordinate to hold their position. Besides
that, staffs with negative feelings can also steal the bliss of their co-workers; often spoiling the
working ambience and energy of every employee. As per the case study, individuals who can
drain other workers’ energy and mood, often controls everyone’s activities in the workplace. In
IIUM Journal of Case Studies in Management, Vol 8, No 1/2, 2017 27
Vasudevan, Mahadi and Robert
such events, the employees feel dissatisfied and unhappy and often decide to stop their job as
they do not wish to stay in the demotivated situation. Things are further worsened by the lack of
concern displayed by the manager, who thinks that he is right, and nobody can question him.
Daily, employees feel that they have wasted their time by managing all the work because all
they receive are negative remarks from the manager who does not desire to appreciate his
employees’ work. Such managers often cage their employees’ mind by not permitting them to
share their opinions and suggestion due to presumptions that employees lack in creativity and
innovation. In this case, Simon lost a competent employee, Alex, because of his negative
attitudes that decreased employees’ job satisfaction. Simon’s behaviour also created low morale
among other subordinates. He lost the trust and value that the subordinates had on him. The
interpersonal communication between leader-member was categorized as low-quality
relationships because both often misunderstood in all the situations.
METHODOLOGY
The findings were evaluated by interviewing the respective employee and manager to identify
the issue of the case. Interviews were conducted among employees to find their response
towards respective manager’s attitude toward employees. Fifteen respondents were interviewed
in a group to understand Simon’s attitude and Alex’s job satisfaction. The data were analysed
using the software Microsoft Excel.
The Pie Chart 2 shows that Simon’s negative attitudes are positively correlated with
Alex’s job dissatisfaction. Simon was found to have negative perceptions of Alex’s ideas at the
highest percentage (60%). This finding can be further supported by Simon’s attitude, whereby
he often criticized Alex’s work before summoning the facts because he had negative thinking
and feelings about Alex. As a result, Alex was dissatisfied with his job, particularly in terms of
communication. Fifty percent was the highest percentage that identified both people do not
communicate well after confrontations. Communication stopped after Alex became dissatisfied
with Simon’s attitude. Alex felt that Simon lacked leadership skills as a general manager
because of his preconceived notions about his subordinates. Ten percent for leadership
accomplishment as obtained in this study is an extremely low value for a managerial level.
Good leadership styles among middle manager and subordinates are essential qualities. This
finding justifies Alex’s claim on Simon’s lack of credibility for the managerial position.
Distressed by all these situations, Alex lost his passion for working in Bank X as he did not
want to be penalized by a person with a lower level of mentality. Alex decided that he lacked
job satisfaction because of Simon’s negative attitudes. Based on this dilemma, the researcher
believes that poor management and leadership could discourage employees from working.
Previous surveys found that to resolve this sort of problem, the following steps should be
considered (Abdulwahab, 2016):
a) Two-way communication enhances employee engagement
b) Give satisfactory opportunities for growth and promotion
c) Give employees appropriate leadership or motivation training
d) Possess a strong feedback system
e) Build a typical corporate culture
f) Focal point for top performing employees
In conclusion, managers displaying negative attitudes in the workplace can create job
dissatisfaction among employees because they limit an employee’s space for contributing and
sharing ideas with others. Such act further hinders employees from achieving the outlined
objectives. A manager’s negative perceptions about employees further ruin the employees’
relationship with the manager. With such mind-set, managers fail to value the performances of
their employees due to their preconceived negative thoughts. As a leader, they should have
positive thinking, feelings, and behaviour towards subordinates to sustain them in the
workplace and achieve the organisational goals. The values and motives depend on the
employee's job and their satisfaction toward the job (Siddika, 2012). All the same, the
employers face challenges in determining what employee engagement is and what values create
it; as there are many hypotheses that are unclear concerning this subject (Saks and Gruman,
2014). Most employees feel comfortable working in challenging and stimulating environments
that fulfil their satisfaction. In this case, the bank management is required to provide all kinds
of satisfaction to employees at the workplace. In order to resolve this kind of problems,
resistance to change in the organisation should be implemented in three levels such as
individual, group and organisational.
RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
It is a difficult task for organisations to avoid changes because new ideas can promote
employees to grow in the organisation. In organisations, changes occur for many reasons such
as new staff roles, increase or decrease in funding, achievement of new engineering, new
missions, visions or goals, to attain new members or customers, and due to changes from
negative to positive behaviour. Resistance to change can be a challenge to an employee and
employer, especially when resolving the troubles. According to Burke (2008), people protest
the imposition of change which is borne as a general truth. However, resistance can also be
proactive resignation or planned to damage (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2010). Any form of changes
must be discussed at three levels; organisational, individual and team or group level.
ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL
Resistance mostly occurs at organisational levels because it involves the implementation of new
ideas which will be used in all departments in the banking industry. Adjustments implemented
by leaders are expected to showcase some resistance within the organisational levels. In this
case, the manager will need to enforce the changes at organisational levels. By taking charge,
they can lead and develop their skills, knowledge, and ability to execute in an organisation.
There are four aspects of organisational resistance that should be considered; the threat to
establish, the threat to expertise, limited focus of changes and structural inertia.
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL
Individual resistance is the beginning of changes in human characteristics. It helps mould their
personalities and achieve their demands. This individual change creates a reaction process that
contributes towards their career. This modification serves to evolve an individual indifference
measure of their capacity.
a) Poor Communication
The poor communications are one of the reasons for resistance to change in an
organisation. The lack of communication will result in a lack of information or inaccurate
information analysis received by the employee. This causes them to feel that they have
insufficient knowledge to perform their jobs.
Moreover, resistance by managers also makes employees feel dissatisfied with the job.
Following are several reasons for the display of resistance by managers:
CONCLUSION
Every organisation has issues to handle, and the way the management or leaders handle the
issues can affect the organisation’s performance as well as the employees' performance. As a
part of the top management, leaders should encourage employees and avoid demotivating
attitude to ensure a better work environment. Emotional intelligence is the most crucial aspect
that should be observed by everyone in an organisation. A high positive level of emotional
intelligence establishes a high level of organisational citizenship behaviour, which further
increases organisational performance. When bank employees can express their emotional
experiences, both individual and organisational performance becomes enhanced. Hence, this
brings down the workplace stress. Successful organisations know the importance of practising
positive attitude in various condition, performance, and employee engagement. Such positivity
is very crucial for employees when they later face with a negative work environment.
Therefore, training assessment and evaluation of employees are very important as it guides
them to learn as well as support the team members at the workplace, while they continue to
attain the organisational goals, vision, and mission. In other words, training provides employees
with a chance to learn coaching, guiding and motivating techniques that can be used to improve
the team members; creating a supportive work environment for the group members further
ensures emotional intelligence development and elimination of negative attitude in the
workplace.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What causes the employee feel dissatisfied at the workplace?
2. Managers should do everything to enhance the job satisfaction of employees. Would
you agree or disagree? Support your answer.
3. Positive attitudes can create employee job satisfaction. State your opinion and example
to substantiate this assertion.
4. Do you think Simon can stay longer in Bank X? Why?
5. How Simon’s negative attitudes affect to the employee’s job dissatisfaction?
6. Why is resistance so important in organizations? Discuss briefly and relate to the case
study.
7. What kind of change strategies should this organization adapt to turn around its
performance and move to a greater height?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to grab this opportunity to express our gratitude and deep thankfulness
to encourage us to accomplish this kind of case study that shares the author's experience when
attached to the banking industry. The writers are very appreciative and thankful to the editorial
office and the committee members for their efforts and time during the reassessment procedure.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that no conflict of interest affecting the publishing of this case paper
because the respective people’s name and organization are not mentioned in this scenario.
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